Melatonin use in children

This article discusses melatonin use in children.

What we do know: Supplemental melatonin can help children with sleep dysfunction (those who lie awake for hours at bedtime) fall asleep. However, melatonin only helps with sleep initiation (falling asleep) not staying asleep. So if you are dealing with wake ups during the night... melatonin is not the solution. Normal awakenings shift and change due to all sorts of developmental milestones and changes as children grow. Overnight awakenings will always be normal although how our children get back to sleep on their own changes our night of sleep dramatically!

What Is Melatonin?
Melatonin is a naturally-occurring hormone that our brains produce to help regulate sleep and wake cycles. People call it the "sleep hormone" because unlike the parts of body that drive wakefulness, melatonin drives sleepiness. Normally, melatonin levels begin to rise in the late evening (around 8 p.m. for kids, around 10 p.m. for teens), remain high for most of the night, and then drop in the early morning a couple hours before we wake up. Light inhibits melatonin and affects how much melatonin your body produces. Hence why being outside in the light during the day with a newborn (especially the ones who want to party all night) or when switching time zones makes a lot of sense! Light from screens (Kindles, iPads, tablets, computers, TVs) inhibits melatonin from being released. Getting outside during the day helps teach your brain day vs. night -- an important strategy for anyone struggling with sleep.

The Melatonin Supplement
The melatonin supplement you find at your local drug store is synthetically produced in factories. Because it's a supplement and not a medicine it's not regulated by the FDA like medicines. Therefore inconsistency in dosing is possible (no one can say that one brand's 1-mg tablet is the same dose as another's). Potency varies by brand and even between different batches from the same manufacturer. Always avoid "natural" melatonin (derived from cow or pig brains) and purchase only the man-made synthetic supplement that is far more readily available.

Melatonin Dosing Recommendations
"There are no clear-cut dosage guidelines because neither melatonin nor any other medication or supplement is approved by the FDA for the purpose of treating insomnia in children," said sleep expert Dr. Maida Chen of Seattle Children's Hospital.

Typically you always want to use the lowest dose: 0.5mg or 1mg -- then consider increasing by 0.5mg every few days if your child isn't falling asleep within an hour of bedtime. While increasing dose, make sure you're also working on consistent bedtimes, policing screens in the bedroom, and working to get good exercise OUTSIDE during the day. Many children will respond to a dose 0.5mg or 1mg an hour or two prior to bedtime. Some children and teens with significant challenges falling asleep are often given doses as high as 3mg to 6mg with severe insomnia at bedtime but in my experience many children get the hypnotic effect at smaller doses. Talk with your child's physician about how to determine a dose if or when melatonin is being used and if it's not working, GET OFF OF IT. Not all children respond to the hypnotic effect of supplemental melatonin.

Timing: You want to give melatonin prior to bedtime to help with increasing sleepiness. Most physicians recommend giving about 1-2 hours prior to ideal bedtime when helping little children fall asleep. However, it does depend why and how you plan to use melatonin. Here's a GREAT on how melatonin works and when to administer from Dr. Craig Canapari -- a pediatric sleep expert at Yale.

Children With ADHD and/or Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD)
Children with ADHD and/or autism spectrum disorder are known to have challenges falling asleep. Studies with melatonin have been done in these populations of children. Dr. Chen explains:
"More trials of melatonin for sleep difficulties have been done in children with ADHD or ASD than studies for typically developing children. Evidence from these trials suggests that melatonin is safe and does shorten the length of time it takes to fall asleep. However, the effects are not generally overwhelming and not every child who takes melatonin shows sleep improvement. The studies mostly evaluate short-term use only." Most worries about long-term use and safety are speculative (based on studies in animals or adults) but without clarity from research it's always best to get kids off melatonin when you can.

Sleep matters. Good sleep is essential. But it's rare for a child to need meds.

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Is melatonin safe for children?

This article discusses the research that has been done on melatonin and children.

Melatonin hormone should be made easily available according to some sleep experts despite the conflict of interest among researchers as to whether it is safe for inducing sleep in children or not, reports The Sydney Morning Herald.

Melatonin is a natural hormone secreted by the pineal gland of the body. The small pea-sized gland which is located just above the middle of the brain is inactive during the day and gets turned on by the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) located in the hypothalamus when it gets dark. It then secretes the melatonin in the blood which is responsible for inducing sleep naturally.

Sleep plays a vital part during the early development of brain in the newborns. The Circadian rhythm or the sleep-wake cycle in the body is regulated by the light and dark and it takes time to develop, resulting in the irregular sleep schedules of newborns. The rhythms begin to develop at about six weeks, and by three to six months most infants have a regular sleep-wake cycle.

However, 30 percent of children aged under three suffer from sleep problems, with the most common causes which are either behavioral or medical, according to a Monash University study.

Pediatric sleep specialist Dr Chris Seton, Woolcock Institute of Medical Research says, melatonin is a better alternative to the antidepressants and blood pressure medication that is commonly used by the parents which cause severe side effects.

But the medical experts do not seem to be readily accepting the claim as some of the research reveals that melatonin could adversely affect development during adolescence. They also have raised concern over the increasing trend of use of the hormone for treating sleep related issues in children.

There are reports which say that children with epilepsy and cerebral palsy were prescribed with melatonin way back since 1991. But it is now believed children with behavioural issues, such as ADHD, are more likely to be given melatonin now.

A senior research fellow at The University of Adelaide, David Kennaway says that the studies done on adults and animals have linked melatonin to a negative impact on reproductive, immune, cardiovascular and metabolic systems. In a research article published in the Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health, he says “It is not registered for use in children anywhere in the world and it has not undergone the formal safety testing expected for a new drug, especially long-term in children.”

But Dr Chris Seton, feels otherwise and says,”There is no evidence that it’s anything but a very safe drug. In the contexts of drugs given to kids, it’s at the top in terms of safety”.

The Sleep Health Foundation has cautiously approved the use of melatonin in children, stating it “appears to be safe and works well in the short term”.

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Study: E-readers can hurt your sleep at night

A study shows that using an e-reader at night can interfere with your sleep. Instead, read from a printed book before bed.

If you're looking forward to catching up on some sleep over the holidays, you might want to put down your e-reader and pick up an actual printed book.

A small study conducted by sleep medicine researchers at Harvard Medical School indicates that e-books can interfere with readers' sleep cycles. According to the Guardian, "Study participants reading a light-emitting ebook took on average almost 10 minutes longer to fall asleep and said they were less sleepy an hour before bedtime than they were reading a paper book."

The study involved "12 healthy young adults" who were asked to read either a printed book or an e-book before going to sleep. The e-book readers experienced less rapid eye movement sleep than their printed-book-reading counterparts, and were less alert the mornings after.

The findings don't apply to the original Amazon Kindle, according to physician and professor Charles Czeisler, one of the researchers, because that e-reader doesn't emit light. The same goes for other e-ink readers such as Barnes & Noble's Nook, the Kobo and the original Sony Reader.

But users of newer e-readers and tablet computers, including the Kindle Fire and iPad, are at risk for less restful sleep, according to the study.

It's not just healthy sleep cycles that are at risk, say the researchers, noting "recent evidence linking chronic suppression of melatonin secretion by nocturnal light exposure with the increased risk of breast, colorectal and advanced prostate cancer associated with night-shift work."

The study might prove more relevant to older readers than younger ones, however. According to recent studies by Nielsen Book, teenagers much prefer printed books over e-books.

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Health consequences of sleep disorders

This article discusses the different health consequences of sleep disorders and issues with an internal clock.

Ulcers, hyperglycemia, diabetes, hypertension, gastric intestinal problems are not always caused by diet - they could be linked to a disrupted internal clock.

Working a job that requires shift-work or experiencing chronic jet lag disrupts your circadian rhythm. It results in countless consequences to your body that simply can’t be fixed by counting sheep.

“Stimulants such as caffeine can disrupt a patient’s circadian rhythm but also irregular sleep habits, jet lag, Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder, which is common in teenagers, Shift Work Sleep Disorder and Advanced Sleep Phase Disorder, which is common in older people,” says Dr. Baqhar Mohideen, the medical director of the Center for Sleep Medicine at Porter Regional Hospital.

“A quarter of American workers are on shift-work – 10 percent of which experience Shift Work Sleep Disorders.”

Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder is when patients fall asleep late and have difficulty waking up in the morning. Shift Work Sleep Disorder affects patients who work nights or rotating shifts. Advanced Sleep Phase Disorder is when patients go to bed early in the evening but wake up very early in the morning around 3 a.m., for example.

Our bodies work on a 24-hour cycle called circadian rhythm or internal clock. The main function of our internal clock is to determine when we sleep and when we wake. Unfortunately if a circadian rhythm is disrupted it affects many biological conditions in the body such as digestion, the release of certain hormones, body temperature, etc.

“Because your hormones are all mixed up, there are lots of consequences – ulcers, chronic fatigue, insulin resistance, glucose intolerance, diabetes, etc.” says Mohideen, who is a Diplomat of the American Board of Sleep Medicine.

Glucose intolerance is an umbrella term for metabolic conditions which result in higher blood glucose levels known as hyperglycemia.

Dr. Muhammed Najjar, sleep specialist at the Franciscan Healthcare Sleep Disorders Center located in Munster, agrees there are consequences for a disrupted circadian rhythm caused by Shift Work Sleep Disorder.

“Daytime functions shouldn’t be at night. When there’s a misalignment between the patient’s internal clock and the outside world, it’s not good for the body,” says Najjar. “Shift work causes stress to the body so blood pressure gets elevated, which is why this disorder can cause hypertension. Treating circadian rhythm disorders can help lower blood pressure.”

Najjar says besides patients experiencing the side effects of a disrupted circadian rhythm there are side effects to sleep deprivation also.

Sleep deprivation affects hormones as well which can lead to body weight and body mass index issues. Gastrointestinal tract problems can surface and it can also cause insulin sensitivity which can lead to diabetes. A patient’s body can also become resistant to treatment.

“Many patients are sleep deprived because when they do sleep, it’s not adequate sleep. This affects their level of alertness and they can become accident-prone,” says Najjar. “If a patient’s shift work schedule rotates, or they sleep with a different pattern on their days off, it’s like having continual jet lag —the circadian system never gets the chance to fully catch up.”

The process of adjusting the internal clock with cues from the environment is called entrainment. Light is a stimulant and can effectively re-align one’s circadian rhythm.

Mohideen says some patients take medication or melatonin to assist in the readjustment process.

Melatonin is a body clock hormone that chemically causes drowsiness and lowers the body temperature in preparation for sleep.

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Children's internal clock could result in trouble sleeping

This article discusses how a child's internal clock, which regulates their natural melatonin levels, could result in the child fighting off sleep at bedtime.

"Just one more story, please?" ''I need a glass of water." ''Mom, I can't sleep!"

When youngsters continually struggle to fall asleep at night, new research suggests maybe their body clock doesn't match their bedtime.

That doesn't mean tots should be up at all hours.

"Just like nutrition and exercise, sleep is critical for good health," said sleep scientist Monique LeBourgeois of the University of Colorado, Boulder, who is leading the research.

The ultimate goal is to help reset a delayed sleep clock so that young children can settle down more easily, she said. Hint: It seems to have a lot to do with light.

We all have what's called a circadian rhythm, a master biological clock, that regulates when we become sleepy, and when we're more alert. Those patterns vary with age: It's the reason teenagers are notorious for late nights and difficult-to-wake mornings.

But how does that clock work in preschoolers, who need more sleep than older kids or adults? A first-of-its-kind study tracked 14 healthy youngsters for six days to begin finding out.

The children, ages 2½ to 3, wore activity monitors on their wrists to detect when they slept. Parents kept diaries about bedtime routines.

Then on the last afternoon, researchers visited each home, dimming lights and covering windows. Then, every 30 minutes for six hours leading up to the child's appointed bedtime, they also coaxed each tot to chew on some dental cotton to provide a sample of saliva.

The reason: To test for levels of a hormone named melatonin that is key to the sleep cycle and also sensitive to light. At some point every evening, people's melatonin levels surge and a while later, they begin to feel sleepy. Among adults who sleep well, that melatonin rise tends to happen about two hours before whatever is their chosen bedtime.

For preschoolers, the new study found that on average, the melatonin surge occurred around 7:40 p.m. The children tended to be tucked in around 8:10 p.m., and most were asleep 30 minutes later, LeBourgeois reported in the journal Mind, Brain and Education.

When melatonin rose earlier in the evening, tots who hit the sack around 8 fell asleep a bit faster. But when the melatonin surge was closer to bedtime, the youngsters were more likely to fuss or make curtain calls after lights-out.

Two children in the study actually were tucked in before their rise in melatonin ever occurred, and it took them up to an hour past bedtime to fall asleep, she said.

"We don't know what that sweet spot is yet," LeBourgeois said, but the data suggest bedtime is easiest if the melatonin surge occurred at least 30 minutes earlier.

The study reinforces what doctors have long suspected is one bedtime barrier, said Dr. Jyoti Krishna, a pediatric sleep expert at the Cleveland Clinic. Other factors can disrupt a child's sleep, too, such as noise, stress or anxiety, or disrupted home routines, he cautioned.

"But this paper reminds us that, hey, there is a time that the body is more ready to sleep than at other times," Krishna said.

The National Institutes of Health says preschoolers need 11 to 12 hours of sleep each day; some typically comes from an afternoon nap.

Parents don't have melatonin tests as a guide, so Krishna advises looking for cues when setting a bedtime — yawning, rubbing eyes — and then to adjust that bedtime as the child gets older.

"The melatonin onset and our body rhythms change," Krishna said. "You can't stick to what worked two years ago with this child, because this child is now a different child."

About 25 percent of young children experience some type of sleep difficulty, including trouble settling down at bedtime, LeBourgeois said. Harried parents aside, there's concern that early-in-life bedtime frustration might lead to more persistent sleep trouble.

"Listen to your child's physiology," she advised. Some steps that might help:

—Research shows that in adults, too much light in the evening delays the melatonin surge and subsequent sleepiness. While there's no data in young children yet, LeBourgeois says dimming the lights about an hour before bedtime makes sense.

—Avoid electronics near bedtime, because they generate a specific type of light that triggers wakefulness. LeBourgeois was horrified to hear one parent offer a sleepless youngster an iPad to play with as long as the child stayed in the bedroom.

—And make sure blackout shades aren't keeping your children from getting enough morning sunlight, she said. Light in the morning also is key to keeping the biological sleep clock on schedule.

Stay tuned: With funding from the National Institute of Mental Health, LeBourgeois has begun a larger study that will track sleep patterns of 40 2-year-olds until they're 5. She'll also measure their light exposure, and periodically record their brain waves during sleep, in a bid to better understand the influence of sleep patterns on children's development.

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The importance of bedtimes for toddlers

A study on the natural sleep cycle of toddlers shows that toddlers have trouble falling asleep if their natural melatonin release is later than their bedtime.

The bedtime you select for your toddler may be out of sync with his or her internal body clock, which can contribute to difficulties for youngsters attempting to settle in for the night, according to a new University of Colorado Boulder study.

The study pinpointed the time when thehormone melatonin increased in the evening, indicating the start of the biological night, in a group of 14 toddlers whose sleep also was studied over the course of six days. The study showed that toddlers with later melatonin rise times took longer to fall asleep after being put to bed, said CU-Boulder Assistant Professor Monique LeBourgeois.

"There is relatively little research out there on how the physiology of toddlers may contribute to the emergence of sleep problems," said LeBourgeois, a faculty member in the integrative physiology department who led the new study. "Sleeping at the wrong 'biological clock' time leads to sleep difficulties, like insomnia, in adults."

While adults get to choose their own bedtime, toddlers rarely have this option, said LeBourgeois. "This study is the first to show that a poor fit between bedtimes selected by the parents of toddlers and the rise in their evening melatonin production increases their likelihood of nighttime settling difficulties," said LeBourgeois.

The findings are important because about 25 percent of toddlers and preschoolers have problems settling after bedtime, said LeBourgeois. Evening sleep disturbance can include difficulties falling asleep, bedtime resistance, tantrums, and episodes known as "curtain calls" that manifest themselves as calling out from bed or coming out of the bedroom, often repeatedly, for another story, glass of water or bathroom trip, she said.

Toddlers with longer intervals between the onset of nightly melatonin release and their subsequent bedtimes were shown to fall asleep more quickly and had decreased bedtime resistance as reported by their parents, according to the study.

A paper on the subject was published this month in the journal Mind, Brain and Education. Co-authors included University Children's Hospital Zurich Director of Child Development Oskar Jenni and CU-Boulder Associate Professor Kenneth Wright Jr. The National Institute of Mental Health funded the study.

Sleep problems in early childhood are predictive of later emotional and behavioral problems, as well as poor cognitive function, that can persist into later childhood and adolescence. In addition, parents of young children with sleep problems often report increased difficulties in their own sleep patterns, which can cause chronic fatigue and even marital discord, she said.

"A natural next step is to optimize our knowledge of the interactions between physiology and the environment to further understand how problems like bedtime resistance first develop and how they are maintained," LeBourgeois said.

Research in adolescents and adults has shown that exposure to light in the evening can delay the timing onset of melatonin. Whether the later rise of melatonin in some toddlers can be pushed to an earlier time by restricting evening light or by increasing morning light exposure is a question still to be answered, she said.

"We believe that arming parents with knowledge about the biological clock can help them make optimal choices about their child's activities before bedtime, at bedtime, and his or her sleeping environment," LeBourgeois said.

For the study, the research team recruited 14 families in Providence, R.I., each of which had a child between 30 and 36 months old who slept at least 10.5 hours nightly and took a daytime nap of at least 45 minutes. Saliva samples containing the children's melatonin levels were collected every 30 minutes over a six-hour period on one evening before bedtime.

Melatonin onset times varied among the 14 toddlers studied, which means the "hands" on the individual body clocks told each to be prepared to sleep at different times in the evening, she said.

Saliva was collected by having toddlers chew on dry dental cotton rolls, which were then "spun" onsite in a small centrifuge. The task of getting numerous saliva samples from a child during a single evening requires a team of three researchers called "sleep fairies" experienced at make-believe games, reading and crafts.

Because light suppresses melatonin levels, saliva samples were collected in families' homes after they were converted into "caves" of sorts by covering the windows with dark plastic, installing dimmer switches and using low-watt light bulbs.

The average evening melatonin onset for the toddlers occurred at roughly 7:40 p.m., which occurred about 30 minutes before parent-selected bedtimes, said LeBourgeois. On average, the toddlers fell asleep about 30 minutes after bedtime. "It's not practical to assess melatonin levels in every child," LeBourgeois said. "But if your child is resisting bedtime or having problems falling asleep, it is likely he or she is not physiologically ready for sleep at that time."

The study showed several toddlers who were put to bed before their rise in melatonin took 40-60 minutes to fall asleep. "For these toddlers, laying in bed awake for such a long time can lead to the association of bed with arousal, not sleep," she said. "This type of response may increase children's lifelong risk for insomnia over time."

The toddlers wore special wristwatches to measure activity, allowing the researchers to objectively assess their sleep. They also collected subjective data from parents on their toddlers' bedtime resistance and ease or difficulty falling asleep.

A 2012 study led by LeBourgeois indicated toddlers show more anxiety, less joy and interest, and a poorer understanding of how to solve problems when they missed their regular afternoon nap versus when they napped. These results suggested that children who miss out on needed sleep don't benefit from positive life experiences and have problems coping with day-to-day challenges.

LeBourgeois currently has 10 undergraduates working in her CU-Boulder lab. "The contributions of students to the research done in my lab are enormous," she said. "They not only perform the majority of data collection, but also participate in analyzing, interpreting and presenting our results to the scientific and lay communities. Their love of science, discovery and working together as a team continually inspires me."

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Too much computer time makes autistic children sleep less

Autistic children are prone to sleep disorders, and excess screen time could add to the likelihood of sleep disorders in these children.

Kids with autism and related disorders are prone to sleep disturbances but a new study finds that screen time, especially in the bedroom, may make their sleep problems worse.

When researchers compared boys with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) to other boys, they found that all the kids with bedroom access to media slept fewer hours, but the relationship was twice as strong for the boys with autism.

"In-room media access was associated with about 1.5 fewer hours of sleep per night in the group with autism," said Christopher R. Engelhardt, who led the study at the University of Missouri-Columbia.

"This association can potentially be problematic, particularly if the reduction in sleep interferes with other daily activities, such as school, homework, interactions with other people, or driving," he told Reuters Health in an email.

Past studies suggest that up to 80% of kids with autism, and related conditions like Asperger's disease, experience sleep troubles, including difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep through the night.

Hormone melatonin

Children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) also are known to have a high rate of sleep disturbances. With both conditions, it's unclear why sleep is so difficult.

Theories include a disruption in sleep-wake cycles that are regulated by the hormone melatonin, which is often deficient in kids with ASDs, Engelhardt and his colleagues write in Paediatrics.  Because kids with autism spectrum disorders, like those with ADHD, also tend to spend a lot of time watching TV and playing video or computer games, the researchers wondered whether that could be contributing to their sleep problems.

So they recruited the parents of 49 boys with autism spectrum disorders, 38 with ADHD and 41 comparison boys with typical development to fill out questionnaires about their children's bedroom screen access and sleep patterns.

 All the kids were between ages eight and 17. Boys with autism who had TV, computers or video games in their bedrooms got less sleep than all the other boys, including boys with autism who didn't have media in their bedrooms.

Limiting electronics

Without a TV in their room, boys with autism spent an average of about nine hours sleeping, compared to less than eight hours among kids with an ASD and a bedroom TV.

In contrast, bedroom TVs didn't seem to make a difference for boys with ADHD or typical development. Boys with autism with computers in their rooms slept nearly two hours less than boys with autism and no bedroom computer.

A lot of time spent playing video games, regardless of where they were located, was also linked to shorter sleep times among boys with ASDs. Even for typical children, too much time with TV or video games has been linked to attention problems, hyperactivity, arguments and physical fights, Engelhardt said. "We can't say that access to a TV causes less sleep," only that the two are linked for some kids, he said.

Last month, the American Academy of Paediatrics called for limiting screen time for all kids to one or two hours per day. ”This is a good recommendation for all children," Dr Beth Marlow, Burry Chair in Cognitive Childhood Development and director of the Sleep Disorders Division at Vanderbilt University Medical Centre in Nashville, Tennessee.

"Following this recommendation for kids with (autism spectrum) and ADHD is good, although children with (autism spectrum) or ADHD who are still having difficulty with sleep despite limiting electronics really deserve a sleep evaluation by their paediatrician or sleep specialist.

Time distortion

"Sleep troubles can also stem from anxiety, sleep apnoea, pain that the child might not be able to express, gastrointestinal problems or seizures, she said.

For typically developing kids, bedroom TV access doesn't usually seem to cut into sleep. "However, (Engelhardt's) finding for teens with ASD concurs with our clinical impressions – that these teens have difficulty 'switching off'' videogames," Michael Gradisar said.

Gradisar is a clinical psychologist who studies technology use and sleep, especially among teens, at Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia. "Many teens have a distorted sense of time passing when playing videogames, however, it may be that this time distortion is stronger for teens with ASD," he said.

Parents can have a tough time managing how much their children play games or watch TV, he said. "It may take quite some time to do, but one option is for parents to introduce other hobbies and activities into their teens lives, so that video gaming eventually occupies less time."

Engaging features

"People with autism tend to spend more time with media outlets, researchers think, because the electronic worlds have engaging audio and visual features and their social interactions are easy relative to real life interactions."

This doesn't necessarily mean that parents should take TVs or video games out of their autistic children's rooms, but might consider limiting or monitoring media consumption, he said. "Screen media can certainly be good for kids with autism," he said.

"Scientists have long known that video games are great at teaching and reinforcing certain behaviours, so it's possible that these games can be used to adjust and shape the types of behaviours generally valued by society, such as behaviours intended to help others."

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Sleep deprivation epidemic in teenagers, study claims

A study claims that there is currently an epidemic of sleep deprivation among teenagers and discusses how this is harmful to their health.

Caffeine, late nights and lack of sleep are just a few ways to describe the life of a typical teenager. Fortunately, a recent teen sleep study conducted at the Golden Bear Sleep and Mood Research Clinic at UC Berkeley aims to help address this problem. Allison Harvey, a psychology professor and the main investigator of the study recognizes the growth in the number of sleep-deprived adolescents and the need to do something about it.

This study has been going on for four years. Participants in the study must be between the ages of 10 and 18 and experience at least one problem relating to emotional health, social aptitude, behavioral irregularity or academic achievement. They also must report having problems sleeping at night. If all criteria are met, they are then invited to a sleepover at the UC Berkeley sleep lab for observation.

Researchers of the study used many methods for improving sleep among the teenage participants. For instance, common methods included motivation interventions and chronothereapy — a type of therapy that involves controlling sleep cycle times as well as the amount of light present — in order to adjust the participants’ circadian rhythm, the internal clock that regulates our biological functions every 24 hours.

The aim of the study was to try to shift the bedtimes of the teenagers. To do so, researchers manipulated melatonin — a hormone which aids in sleep and wake cycles. Once the participants arrived at the campus for the sleepover, they were expected to complete a six-week intervention. The intervention included sessions with a sleeping coach, interviews, saliva samples as well as monitoring activity levels through a special watch known as the Actiwatch.

The study wouldn’t have been possible without the undergraduate student research assistants, whose help includes everything from helping with recording, monitoring Actiwatch, being a morning or night buddy for the participants and having an active role in the biomeasures and outreach group.

Grace Wang, an undergraduate student majoring in psychology, molecular biology and nutritional science, has been an active member of the research assistant team for the study.

“More and more people realize how important sleep is and how important it is to set a regular sleep cycle. Perhaps it would be harder for the teenaged generation to understand, acknowledge and actually implement this into their schedules as they have a lot of things on their plates: clubs, activities, homework, etc.,” Wang said, who is no stranger to unhealthy sleeping cycles herself, in an email interview.

However, sleep-deprived teenagers are not only exclusive to the UC Berkeley campus. Ariel Sim, a third-year UC Davis statistics major and economics minor, has the tendency to calculate the number of hours of sleep she will be getting, though sadly it’s not nearly enough. Just like many students found over all sorts of campuses, Ariel is involved in not only her academics, but other activities as well.

“I am a student leader at a Christian fellowship on campus. I also have to work as much as I can without sacrificing schoolwork to cover rent, tuition, bills, insurance, groceries and any other living expenses. While I have a lot of responsibilities that take up my time, I also suffer from mild insomnia. Perhaps, that’s why I don’t get an ‘ideal’ amount of sleep or ever feel fully rested,” Sim said in an email interview.

Dr. Irwin Feinberg and Dr. Ian Campbell, both from the UC Davis Sleep Research Lab and the Department of Psychiatry and Behavior Sciences are also interested in studying sleep deprivation among teenagers. Both are involved in a sleep need study in adolescents and how the need changes from the ages of 10 to 18 years old.

“There is a decreased need of sleep across adolescence from 12 to 16.5 years, and right now the recommended hours of sleep for teenagers is nine to 10 hours a night,” Dr. Campbell said.

Feinberg and Campbell’s findings lead the researchers to believe that adolescents need less recuperation during the night if they achieve it through naps during the day. Because these findings are not yet conclusive, they are working on teasing out the details.

So if you have brothers or siblings at that age or care for kids yourself, and if they are falling asleep during the day, then most likely they are sleep-deprived. According to both Dr. Feinberg and Dr. Campbell, it is equally important that teenagers develop a regular sleeping schedule regardless of the weekday or weekend.

As a rule of thumb, it is important to try to ensure that teenagers are well-rested in order to have a healthy lifestyle, but in the process of ensuring their sleep, don’t forget to catch some shut eye yourself.

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Autistic children's sleep patterns

A study shows that autistic children sleep for shorter periods of time and wake more easily than non-autistic children.

Sleep problems are common in children with Autism. Studies have revealed that 50 to 80% of children with autism experience sleep difficulties at some time. Past research has focused on disrupted sleep patterns linked to Autism however; the quality of the evidence accumulated to date has often been compromised by small sample size, lack of agreed definitions, and poor comparability of study participants.

In this new study researchers examined longitudinal sleep patterns in children with autistic spectrum disorders (ASDs) by using long term data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), a cohort study of children born in Avon, England during 1991 and 1992. The study tracked the health and development of more than 14,000 children.

Parents were asked about their children's sleeping patterns when their kids were 6, 18, 30, 42, 69, 81, 115 and 140 months old, including when their children routinely went to bed and woke up on week days, and how much time they spent sleeping during the daytime.

Researchers also took into account other key information that included the results of the validated The Social Communications Disorders Check List (SCDC) a questionnaire completed by parents which measures social reciprocity and verbal/non-verbal characteristics similar to those found in Autism. The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-III) was administered at age seven years. TheWISC-III considers a variety of constructs in determining the Full Scale Intelligence Quotient.

Eighty six of the children had been diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorders by the time they were 11 years old. Thirty had classic autism; 15 had atypical autism; and 23 had Asperger's syndrome.

The final analysis was based on 39 children with autistic spectrum disorders and 7043 typical children for who complete data across all time points were available.

Before the age of 30 months (2.6 yrs.) there was no major difference in sleep patterns between the two groups. However, from 30 months onwards, children with autistic spectrum disorders tended to sleep less in total, with the greatest discrepancy (43 minutes) persisting up to 140 months of age, a difference that remained significant after adjusting for sex, ethnicity, high parity and epilepsy.

The reduction in total sleep was wholly due to changes in night rather than daytimesleep duration. Night-time sleep duration was shortened by later bedtimes and earlierwaking times. Frequent waking (3 or more times a night) was also evident among the children with ASD from 30 months of age.

When it comes to disturbed sleep patterns the authors suggested that an increasing body of data suggests that production of the sleep hormone melatonin may be impaired in some children with autistic spectrum disorders.

The authors acknowledge it is unclear just what impact this shortened sleep pattern may have, however they point out that other researchers have suggested that sleep loss may have impact on neuronal development.

"If this hypothesis of cumulative sleep reduction resulting in neuronal loss is confirmed, then clinically [children with autism] might gain from even a small consistent increase in total sleep time," write the team.

In their conclusion the researchers write “Sleep duration in children with ASD is reduced from 30 months of age and persists until adolescence.”

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Risks of sleep texting

This article discusses the new phenomenon of sleep texting and how it could be harmful for your health.

While smartphone owners use their devices to text and email throughout the day, some people are taking their addictions to new heights and texting while sleeping, reports say.

A phenomenon called "sleep-texting" is on the rise, with sleep disorder specialists reporting that more and more people are texting several times a night while they're asleep, according to CBS New York last week.

WebMD writes that teens are especially at risk of "sleep-texting," with more and more kids reaching for the phones during the night, sending texts, and waking up with no recollection of what took place.

"Four o'clock in the morning, 3 o'clock in the morning -- it would just be a sentence of jumbled-up stuff," sleep-texter Megan told CBS New York.

"I guess I got up and texted, and went back to bed, but I don't remember it."

Aside from the risk of sending bizarre texts to your contacts, sleep-texting isn't good for your health in that it interrupts deep, restful REM sleep, experts say.

"Sleep is a very important restorative process," Dr. Josh Werber, a sleep and snoring specialist, told US News. "And when we're not fully engaged in it, and not getting the amount we need, we're not having the same restorative effect on our brains -- and that affects our cognitive ability the next day."

Best way to resolve the problem? Experts recommend shutting off your smartphone before bed or even moving your devices out the bedroom entirely.

Also wean yourself off using gadgets in the evenings, in that research has shown that light-emitting screens from tablets and smartphone can suppress the release of the sleep-promoting hormone melatonin and enhance alertness, making it more difficult to sleep.

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Technology hurting your sleep

Light from phones, tablets and computers can interfere with a person's natural melatonin production and interfere with sleep.

Smartphones and tablets can make for sleep-disrupting bedfellows. One cause is believed to be the bright light-emitting diodes that allow the use of mobile devices in dimly lit rooms; the light exposure can interfere with melatonin, a hormone that helps control the natural sleep-wake cycle. But there may be a way to check your mobile device in bed and still get a good night's sleep. A Mayo Clinic study suggests dimming the smartphone or tablet brightness settings and holding the device at least 14 inches from your face while using it will reduce its potential to interfere with melatonin and impede sleep.

The research was among Mayo Clinic studies being presented at SLEEP 2013, the Associated Professional Sleep Societies annual meeting in Baltimore.

"In the old days people would go to bed and read a book. Well, much more commonly people go to bed and they have their tablet on which they read a book or they read a newspaper or they're looking at material. The problem is it's a lit device, and how problematic is the light source from the mobile device?" says co-author Lois Krahn, M.D., a psychiatrist and sleep expert at Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Ariz.

"There's a lot of concern about using mobile devices and that prompted me to wonder, are they always a negative factor for sleep?" Dr. Krahn says. "We found that only at the highest setting was the light over a conservative threshold that might affect melatonin levels. If it's at the mid setting or at a low setting it's bright enough to use."

In the study, researchers experimented with two tablets and a smartphone in a dark room, using a meter on its most sensitive setting to measure the light the devices emitted at various settings when held various distances from a person's face. They discovered that when brightness settings were lowered and the devices were held just over a foot from a user's face, it reduced the risk that the light would be bright enough to suppress melatonin secretion and disrupt sleep.

Other Mayo research presented at the conference includes the finding that some sleep apnea patients may not need annual follow-up visits. Patients with obstructive sleep apnea being treated with positive airway pressure are less likely to need a yearly check-up.

The researchers suggest developing a screening tool to assess which of these patients need annual follow-up visits.

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Study: Teens using mobiles after 'lights out' risk of mental health issues

A study from Japan shows many mental health issues associated with teenagers and cell phone use.

A new Japanese study finds that teens who use their mobile phones late at night may have an increased risk for not only sleep deprivation but also mental health issues.

Published in the October issue of the Journal of Pediatric Psychology, researchers found a link betweenteens who used mobile phones after they went to bed and poor mental health and suicidal thoughts compared to those who did not use their phones at this time of night. The researchers controlled for other factors, including alcohol and drug usage.

In the study, researchers investigated nearly 18,000 children in junior high and high schools in Japan, with subjects answering questions about their mental health, in addition to sleep and mobile phone habits.

The study follows prior research that finds poor sleep is associated with mental problems in teens. For example, a study published last year in the Journal of Psychiatric Research found teens who had difficulty sleeping were at an increased risk for suicidal thoughts.

Additionally, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's Lighting Research Center in the US found that looking at the backlit screen of certain electronic devices can suppress melatonin, a hormone produced during sleep, and cause sleeplessness. This study was published recently in the journal Applied Ergonomics.

While according to a recent study ‘Walking Safely: A Report to the Nation’ conducted by Safe Kids worldwide, a global non-profit organisation with the aim to ‘protect kids from unintentional injuries', pedestrian injuries and deaths, particularly among teens between the ages of 16 to 19 years-old in the U.S, has increased by 25% in the last five years due to their inability to put their phones down.

“We suspect one cause of this disturbing trend is distraction, since the increase in teen injuries seems to correlate with the prevalence of cell phone use, both among walkers and drivers,” said president and CEO of Safe Kids Worldwide, Kate Carr.

Due to this, the study suggests that teens in the age group 14-19 ‘account for 50% of child pedestrian injuries in the U.S.’

There has, however, been a significant decrease in the number of deaths and injuries among children between the ages of 5-9 who have previously been at the highest risk. According to Safe Kids, deaths in the younger age group have had a 53% decrease, while pedestrian injuries have dropped by 44% since 1995.

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Leave The Backlit Tablet Out Of The Bedroom For A Good Night's Sleep

This article discusses a study showing how detrimental having a device with a backlight can be to your sleep.

Electronic devices with self-illuminated backlit displays have been shown to cause melatonin levels to drop, making it much harder for persons who use such devices to read or study before bedtime to fall asleep. The findings come from a study by researchers at the Lighting Research Center (LRC) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, NY, who explain that if you have stared at a luminous screen for a long enough period, chances are you will probably have a hard time falling asleep.

They find that using a lighted electronic gadget for just two hours before bedtime can cause sleep problems, especially in teenagers. Melatonin is a chemical that controls a person’s body clock, and researchers believe teens are more susceptible to sleeplessness when using these melatonin-robbing gadgets.

“Our study shows that a two-hour exposure to light from self-luminous electronic displays can suppress melatonin by about 22 percent,” said lead researcher Mariana Figueiro of RPI. “Stimulating the human circadian system to this level may affect sleep in those using the devices prior to bedtime.”

The small study–“Light Level And Duration Of Exposure Determine The Impact Of Self-Luminous Tablets On Melatonin Suppression”–is published in the journal Applied Ergonomics and funded by Sharp Laboratories.

The study included 13 subjects who read, watched videos and played video games on tablets with backlit displays for two hours before bedtime.

Study participants were divided into three groups. The first group viewed the tablets while wearing clear goggles fitted with 470-nm blue light from LEDs. This was a “true positive” condition because the blue light is known to be a strong stimulus for suppressing melatonin. Group 2 wore orange-tinted glasses, capable of filtering out the short-wavelength radiation that can suppress melatonin; this was the “dark control” condition. Group 3 wore no glasses.

Each tablet in the experiment was set to full brightness. In order to accurately record personal light exposures during the experiment, each subject wore a device known as a Dimesimeter close to the eye. This device, developed by LRC, continuously recorded circadian light and activity levels.

Actual melatonin suppression values after 60 minutes were very similar to those estimated using a predictive model of human circadian photo-transduction for one-hour light exposures.

“Based on these results, display manufacturers can use our model to determine how their products could affect circadian system regulation,” and possibly design more “circadian-friendly” electronic devices that could either increase or decrease circadian simulations depending on the time of day–reducing circadian stimulation in the evening for a better night’s sleep, and increasing in the morning to encourage alertness.

Past studies have shown that disturbances in our circadian rhythm may lead to brain cell changes, and cause sleep problems in aging. Researchers at the University of Southern California found that circadian rhythm is much more important to life than had previously been suspected.

In the current study, melatonin suppression that occurred after exposure to the luminous tablet screen was similar to what one would expect after exposure to normal sunlight, Figueiro explained. In other words, the screen light tricks the human’s body clock into thinking it is still daytime.

The team conducted their studies using a tablet computer, but believe any gadget with a backlit display could have a similar effect, including smartphones and e-readers, with the exception of the Kindle, which has no backlight.

“Technology developments have led to bigger and brighter televisions, computer screens, and cell phones,” Brittany Wood, researcher and study coauthor, told MedicalNewsToday. “To produce white light, these electronic devices must emit light at short wavelengths, which makes them potential sources for suppressing or delaying the onset of melatonin in the evening, reducing sleep duration and disrupting sleep. This is particularly worrisome in populations such as young adults and adolescents, who already tend to be night owls.”

The results of the study suggest avoiding backlit tablets and reaching for a paperback book instead. The black-and-white Amazon Kindle is another safe bet.

But researchers also believe the study could give manufacturers ideas to build gadgets for a host of conditions and illnesses linked to lack of sunlight exposure, such as seasonal affective disorder (SAD) and sleep disorders. Users could receive therapy while watching a movie, playing a game, or even writing and reading. This would be much more therapeutic than just sitting in front of a light box, which is a treatment option for SAD patients.

MedicalNewsToday reports in its article that in prehistoric times, man was used to going to bed at dusk because melatonin levels would shoot up as sunset occurred, making these ancient people tired. And in those times, especially before fire was discovered, it made sense to go to sleep at dusk, and melatonin played a significant role in that. But then fire was discovered, then candles, light bulbs, and then LED. Now we are exposed to light at all hours of the day and night, really messing up our biological clocks.

For the time being, since there is no way to escape the omnipresence of light in our technological world, perhaps the best thing to do is to grab a good paperback, and enjoy a few less hours of light at night before bedtime.

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